CyberPower Gamer Xtreme XT Review

Introduction:

Now that it' s Christmas time many of us start looking for a new build or a refresh of the old system and try to breath a little more life into the the old warhorse. Graphics cards, processors, system memory, and motherboards all have a cost associated with them and sometimes the smart bet is to just spend the extra cash and update the whole system. The question then is do you go with a pre-built performance PC (Not a Dell) or do you build it yourself. Lets say you go with the complete update. Usually the high performance parts are going to cost the really big dollars so you need to save where you can. But where is the level of the compromise? Usually the result is that the build gets out of hand when looking at performance prebuilt systems. The question is can I (you) build it cheaper and still get the same components? Thats a Question I am here to answer. Cyberpower has provided one of their Gamer XT systems for Overclockers club to play with and to ultimately give away to one of our lucky readers. This system retails for $1599 US and includes some really nice performance parts buried in a Thermaltake Spedo Advanced Chassis. This system includes one of the fastest graphics cards out today: the HD4870x2, The CPU is cooled via an Asetek water cooling system for the Core I7 920 processor that just happens to be overclocked to 3.0 GHz. A set of Kingston Hyper X PC3 14400 3x1gb tri channel memory, The Asus P6T Deluxe as a foundation and a blue Ray drive from Lite-on. With the top brand parts you can see that building this PC for $1599 seems like a tough job. Can we build it for less by using these same parts from the many e-tailers out there? To simplify I will use pricing from one e-tailer that everyone knows in Newegg as my pricing source if possible.

First things first though. I will run this system through the overclockersclub suite of benchmarks to see what kind of performance you can expect from such a build and to see how it compares to our current (soon to be updated) test platform that includes some pretty decent hardware. You have seen the reviews on the Core I7 processors and motherboards since you have been looking at your next upgrade path haven't you? Let's see how well it does.

Closer Look:

The Gamer Xtreme Xt comes in a massive box. So large the UPS delivery guy asked for help bringing it to the house. I had to chuckle at that. When I opened the box I was greeted with plenty of foam. Packaging! Check! The foam was tightly packed and nothing moved. That's always a good sign. Pulling up the 3 inch thick first layer of foam you get to the mouse keyboard combo from Logitech, the video card from HIS and the Cyberpower carry case that has the software and documentation for the build and motherboard. With the components out of the box you can see that the PC is all ready to go save for installing the video card.

The Spedo Chassis from Thermaltake is well protected with a cloth cover that helps prevent damage from rubbing across the foam protective caps.

Once the Chassis is out of its cocoon you can see that the Spedo chassis is filled with all of the parts requested during the build. The only Item not installed is the video card. The reason for this is that the card could become dislodged in shipping and wreak havoc on the rest of the components inside the chassis.

On the front panel of the Spedo there are only two items of note. There is the 4x Blue Ray drive to allow viewing the latest high definition content through the HD4870x2 and a flash card reader, something that comes in quite handy with the many different types of flash media we use on a daily basis. Since this is a custom build Cyberpower does put their stamp on the build up front and center.

Once inside the chassis the build quality is superb. The wire management is excellent with the wiring thoughtfully left in place for the HD4870x2. The rest is well hidden and cannot be seen through any of the assorted vents in the case. The Asetek cooling system is located on the bottom 120mm exhaust vent with the tubing routed in the most direct way to the pump/block assembly. The Kingston memory is pre installed in the outer dimm slots and are rated at 1800MHz which is where they are set to run in the BIOS.

With just a quick look around at the Gamer Xtreme XT it looks like a solid package with parts chosen to work well together for a system that can be used for just about anything from general web surfing to hardcore gaming to watching the latest high definition content on your big screen tv. I cant wait to see how this combo performs knowing just how my current setup performs.